Okaeri, Kyoudai (Touken Ranbu fanfic)
Summary:
A moment amongst many between two brothers in a storage shed on the edge of the citadel. No matter what challenges Oodenta proved for himself and for his Kyoudai to tackle, Sohaya was always happy to be there at his brother's side.
To read on AO3, follow the link below. To read here, continue past the read more!
“Kyoudai, you gotta pay more attention to yourself out there.”
Sohaya’s words were scolding, but his tone was gentle and a bit distracted as he applied a bandage over a cut across Oodenta’s cheekbone. His patient obediently tilted his head for easier access and only sighed softly, glancing away from his brother.
“...I couldn’t feel it, so I didn't think there was any need for anyone to have to tend to me.”
Sohaya shook his head, continuing on to coax the other out of his battle uniform’s jacket so he could check on what lay beneath. With the garment gone, it laid bare various nicks and cuts bleeding in small smears across Oodenta’s arms and a particularly deep cut that seemed to travel across the full wrap around of his side to his hip. It wasn’t too serious as the blood wasn’t pouring out of him like some gruesome fountain, and both of them were used to much worse injuries. Being manageable didn't make Sohaya worry and less though.
“Well, if that were the case I don’t think we’d be here now would we?”
He turned to his side and grabbed some peroxide and a cloth pad he had managed to snag from Yagen’s supplies in the healing room, getting to work on the smaller cuts first as they would take less time and less maneuvering the other sword around. Oodenta would never spook or directly say no to his kyoudai, but that didn't mean Sohaya was a true exception to his characteristic discomfort and unease with being touched for too long or without warning. He wanted to ease Oodenta through the process as much as he could.
“.....I’m sorry…Sohayanotsurugi..”
Sohaya was quick to glance up from his work at that, ruby red eyes meeting darker crimson ones. Oodenta met his gaze, for once holding it as if the attention would further prove his honesty.
The blonde moved forward from his kneeling position, leaning until his forehead pressed against his brother’s. Oodenta seemed to wilt a bit further under the contact, but he didn't speak or try to move away. They stayed just like that, Oodenta leaned up against the storehouse back wall with one leg outstretched and the other pulled up and leaning to the side a bit and Sohaya kneeling before him, holding himself in the slightly awkward leaning position with his hands so he didn't put all his weight against the other.
“You don’t need to feel bad about getting hurt, I just want you to care more about yourself and get help if you need it. Even if it is just seeking me or Maeda out, nobody here wants to see you hurt. What good would it do if I hadn't seen you slinking back here when I was back from chores, would you have just sat here and let yourself bleed out?”
Oodenta hummed softly, giving genuine thought to the question. Before he could give a response, Sohaya moved back once more to sit on his haunches,shaking his head.
“Nevermind, it worked out and I'm here so let’s just work on these injuries and getting you back to peak condition, yeah?”
His brother nodded, seeming to relax a bit at those words. With a fond smile, Sohaya returned to his work, cleaning each of the cuts and placing a bandage on it as needed. When it came to the deeper gash, Sohaya didn't bother with asking and just unbuttoned the dress shirt and untied the rope and leather harness Oodenta wore and got to work cleaning away dried blood that had crusted into his brother’s pale skin so he could assess the real damage. Oodenta didn't make a sound as peroxide hit open wound, though Sohaya was almost glad to notice the slight rise in attention as Oodenta’s gaze swiveled over and down.
‘So he can feel that, that’s good.’
Oodenta Mitsuyo had not adjusted to life in a human body well at all, seemingly worse than a lot of the other blades, holy or otherwise. Most usually struggled in adapting to having human needs, which was a more than fair adjustment to have to contend with. However, for Oodenta it seemed he had troubles differentiating not just his new needs, but also just connecting with his own sense of self at all.
His emotions were intense and yet it seemed Oodenta struggled on being able to identify and express them at all. He was very quick to accept orders or guidance from others, even in things he found uncomfortable he would never truly put up a fight or disobey someone and it was to a bit of a worrying degree, Sohaya had concerns for his own autonomy at times admittedly. And anyone who had spent longer periods of time with Oodenta would find it hard to miss the patches of time where he just seemed…lost, like either he wasn’t really physically there in the moment or he would suddenly “come back” to himself and seem displaced entirely. Sohaya had only asked him about it once directly, and the genuine confusion Oodenta had in response and the admittance of not having recall for the time prior was enough to make him not ask further. He didn't want to scare his brother with something they couldn’t quite handle, and it had never been an issue in battle thankfully so it was just another odd quirk of his precious brother’s.
In the end, Sohaya had needed to use the needle and thread to stitch up Oodenta’s side, something the other only nodded to being told and with a little awkward adjusting it was done. Afterwards, Oodenta looked absolutely drained and Sohaya didn't blame him. He had gone out on a few days long mission and came back only to go straight into treatment here with him.
“Neh, Kyoudai, do you feel up to eating anything before you pass out?”
He was answered by a slow head shake, the other quietly adjusting himself where he sat to let both legs relax in front of him. He looked a bit more than ready to topple over, Sohaya noted as he let himself slide into place on his brother's left. As if on cue, Oodenta let himself list to that side, resting his temple against the blonde’s shoulder, causing Sohaya to chuckle brightly.
“Sohaya…?”
“Mmmhmm?”
He waited patiently, a smile on his lips as he did his best to cant his head at an angle that he could catch some of his brother's expression in the corner of his eye.
“...My hair…would you…”
Sohaya hummed, already knowing the question. He turned himself a bit causing his brother to slump forward a bit more into his collarbone which freed up his shoulder and thus his arm. With the new mobility, he reached around Oodenta’s head to tug at the string tying up the small ponytail that kept some of the other’s hair out of he way in combat. When it gave in to the insistent tugging, dark bluish hair fell down into and around Oodenta’s face. Mission complete, Sohaya did his best to shift back to leaning against the wall, Oodenta letting himself be pushed and adjusted back to rest on the other’s shoulder like before.
“Sohaya..?” Oodenta’s voice was softer than before, spoken more into his brother’s shoulder than out loud. Nonetheless, as always, Sohaya hummed in attention.
“....I think…you’re like the sun…”
Sohaya blinked, a laugh bubbling past his lips. “Is that so, what makes you say so, kyoudai?”
Oodenta was slow to speak, but Sohaya gave him rapt attention and patience. His brother was never the direct or forthright type, though whether that was on purpose due to his shyness or if it was apart of his struggle to articulate himself at times could be up for anyone’s guess.
“...You are warm, and bright, and you nurture the things around you. The world doesn't feel like it would be the same without you shining down on it.”
Sohaya’s face felt a bit warm and unable to engage in anything more due to the position, he leaned his head to the side to rest atop Oodenta’s and nuzzled his cheek into newly freed locks. Oodenta made a soft noise, surprised at the contact but he relaxed into it after a moment and even shyly returned the affection into the other’s shoulder. Albeit it in a more subdued amount and pressure.
“What am I going to do with you, huh? My precious only kyoudai. If I'm the sun then it only makes sense that you’re the moon.”
“...isn’t Mikazuki Munechika..-”
“Iya ya ya, you’re the moon to my sun. Just for us, just here, alright?”
“Mn.”
“You’re quiet and gentle, you’re darker and a bit more mysterious, but you inspire people to things they’d never be capable of on their own. You draw people in like the tide, you’re important too.”
He was met with silence, and only after moments stretched into almost a minute did he finally receive a quiet but meaningful,
“ Oh.”
“I’m glad we’re getting to do this together, Kyoudai. I wouldn't want it any other way.”
He felt Oodenta shift beside him, his legs curling in to press knees against the side of his own leg, and he felt a sudden tug to the side of his pants at his thigh where Oodenta now gripped the fabric tentatively.
“...I'm also glad…to be here…I wouldn't want to be here alone either. It wouldn't be….right without Sohaya.”
Sohaya smiled wide and bright, an eye-catching expression if it weren't hidden away in a shed at the edge of the citadel in the dark. But that was fine, because it was just for him and Oodenta just like this moment was. He sat there, content and comfortable despite the wood surfaces to his back and beneath him as he heard his brother’s breathing start to even out with sleep, the excursions and conversation finally wearing him out.
“Okaeri, kyoudai.”
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So you want to hear something funny?
I've been vaguely aware of Touken Ranbu since probably 2018, but only in the last couple months have I actually started engaging with it; I found an image of Izuminokami Kanesada on Pinterest, thought "damn", and it's all spiraled from there. Mainly it spiraled into obsessively reading Kanesada/Kunihiro fanfictions, but still.
Well, I've been scraping the bottom of the Ao3 barrel, and before I start trying other sites, I decided I should probably try actually engaging with the source material, since thats the way i usually get involved in the fan side of things (also, i should probably learn to care about more than two characters, or at least their *names* because i think i only know like 5 of those). To my surprise, there actually is an English version of the game available right now on Google Play. So I downloaded it, set up an account, got through the tutorial and banner announcements....
Only to see the "English Server Termination" announcement.
Yeah, they're shutting the English version down in like two months. I have no idea if there'll be any other way to play after that point, and maybe the fandom can help point me in the right direction if there will be, but at this point, I'm not going to invest myself in a game that'll be inaccessible in two months.
There are two (?) animes and a couple musicals I can check out from what I've gathered (I have watched a few episodes of Hanamura) but I have a feeling I'm doomed to have my entire investment in Touken Ranbu just be Kanesada and Kanesada kissing Kunihiro.
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so reblogs have been turned off in this post but i encourage people to read it, because it is such an interesting and almost anthropological discussion on fanfiction. tl:dr - fanfic is incredibly different from published literary fiction because it serves a different purpose and has a different audience and has thus developed its own set of norms and tropes. it's like a "species" of literature that evolved separately from other genres.
recently i've been reading less fanfic and more published books and i think this discussion hit the nail on the head about why i've been craving published fiction - sometimes i want a break from the tropes and patterns common in modern fanfic. i'm not saying that the tropes themselves are bad, and i'm not saying that ALL fanfics are trope-y and follow a pattern. it's more like a change of pace: if one immerses oneself so much in one mode of writing, it's good to take a break and try out other modes so that one doesn't get bored or frustrated.
the discussion on inter-fandom differences was so fascinating as well! this is something i observed when i was still actively reading and writing for touken ranbu, a franchise that has no unified canon apart from the basic premise and rules. i've read dense character studies steeped in japanese history and culture, but i've also read light fics that are just citadel shenanigans or narrative interpretations of in-game events. those reflect the "anything goes" nature of the parent franchise: you've got the stage plays and musicals, which ruminate heavily on the swords' past and the significance of history, and then you've got something like hanamaru, which pokes fun at the characters and in-game events in a slice-of-life setting. and fics are going to have different modes too depending on what the central relationship is: sword/sword and sword/saniwa read differently, in the same way that character/character and character/reader fics for the same fandom have completely different styles.
a lot of the reblogs also added plenty of interesting points (and i encourage people to go through them!!) - one i found particularly fascinating has to do with the medium of the parent franchise. lots of fanfics sound like stage scripts or screenplays because the parent franchise is a film or tv/streaming series or manga - it's already primarily visual in nature, so writers extending that world into their fics tend to adopt a more cinematic mode of writing as well. and that made perfect sense to me, because when i wrote fics for anime / manga franchises i would imagine my fics in that mode too. hell, when i wrote dialogue i would try to imagine it in the character's voice or what it would look like in a fan scanlation speech bubble.
also i'm glad that the discussion was largely value-neutral! fanfic isn't bad because it doesn't sound "literary"; a more literary mode would serve its function and target audience poorly. (and insert discussion here on what powers and institutions decide what "literary" is in the first place, etc.) but yeah if you want to read some fascinating meta on fanfic please check out the original post and its reblogs!
other reblogs that i found particularly interesting:
on writing for an audience + when description is skippable
fanfic evolved separately from other lit genres
fanfic sounds like scripts bc the parent franchise is visual
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